Rough Weather

It's hard to believe I haven't blogged in almost a month, but it has been a busy one. The high school musical was Sweeney Todd, and we has the pleasure of watching Devi play the long-lost, crazy wife, and got to see Tara do scenery and such in the background. Finn's instrumental ensemble concert and choir concert was a few days later, as was Tara's band concert. All the morris teams danced at Solebration (including the longsword team), and there were also a couple of paying gigs for the border team. Lots of practices. Oh, and the actual holidays and attending rituals and get-togethers, plus a couple of birthdays too. Wonderfully fun, but some thing fell by the wayside.

I finished my December socks on the 20th, in plenty of time to give them to Tara for Christmas. There was much rejoicing. ;) To my immense satisfaction, she proceeded to wear them around the house for the next 3 days. Her colors, her size, great pattern.

I also got a couple of good shots of Finn goofing around in his Ogre Slippers.

 

I finished my February Lady this month, too. I knitted the cuffs three times, finally deciding the sleeves needed to be full-length and decreased towards the end so the garter stitch cuffs don't flare out. I wear it almost every day.

Myriade Domino

I volunteered at TACtile Textile Arts Canter today. When I was looking for an simple, no-brain-required project to take along I found that everything on the needles right now is kind of thinky. I'm not even far enough into this month's socks to get very far without looking at the pattern constantly. So I grabbed a tote bag full of Bernat Myriade that I bought a long time ago and have been planning to knit into a ???  I decided that domino squares would be a nice way to show off the gradual color changes, but that's as far as I got. I took a skein and some size 9 needles, threw it into the spindle bag (in case I felt like working on the Rose Quartz batt) and left.

After a few false starts, I'm now 2 squares in on a lovely ??? Probably a blanket of some kind, but not willing to commit yet. We'll see if it suddenly wants to be anything in particular. In the meantime, I'll have something to do.

 

I finally got Devi to model the Funny and Fancy socks.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. She's been wearing them a lot, much to my immense pleasure. If I'd known all it took was silky sock yarn, I'd have made the switch years ago.

December Round Up

I've been making progress on my project pile, in one way or another. First, the sad news.

This afternoon, I bid farewell to Heere Be Dragone. I pulled it out to take pictures in hopes that it might motivate me, but when I took the meager 20-odd rows out of the bag, I saw that it had been chewed up all along one edge. Upon closer inspection, I saw a centipede-looking thing crawling around in the bag. Ugh. The skeins got shaken out outside and placed in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I took the chewed up bit off the needles and threw it away outside. Don't know when I'll pick that pattern up again, but it probably won't be anytime soon.

The good news is, of the 15 WIPs I found in October, only 7 remain on the needles. I finished the Noro Silk Garden Sock ZigZag Scarf yesterday. It came out a little shorter than I had hoped, so I "blocked" it by pinning it up to dry by one of the end points. I like the way the corners fold, nice and leafy. I would like to see it with smaller squares (that would make it longer, too). Next time I'm in a domino mood I'll pick up another skein and give it a go.

I did like the yarn, but I would never knit socks with it. It is a loosely twisted single with a very variable diameter. Great for accessories, but seeing "sock" in the name is, I feel, misleading.

On the subject of socks, it is now December so I can start my self-imposed sock club selection for the month. I'm knitting Rough Weather from Think Outside the Sox in a skein of Lion Brand Magic Stripes that I've had sitting around for a really, really long time. Since before I found real yarn shops to buy yarn in. I've made a pair of socks from this yarn before, it's not bad but not my first choice. A little on the thick side, and a bit fuzzy but durable and soft and warm. This pair will be for Tara since she loves the colorway, Lumberjack Black. If I knit fast enough, she may even get them for Christmas.